A Gilt Nutmeg

It’s still Passover so I’m not too too late with this holiday approved dessert, I think.  Between all of the coconut macaroons and flourless chocolate cakes that come out this time of the year, this combo seemed like an obvious (and delicious) choice–and contrary to many holiday desserts, this one is so incredibly easy I could hardly believe it!  It only has 4 ingredients and takes practically no time to complete the steps, which was a major relief because those Hot Cross Buns put a temporary curse on my kitchen.  Nothing was working and after I ruined the lime creme I was making to fill coconut macaroon tart shells, I was sure I was going to have to go back to the grocery store at 10pm (typical me scenario) to get ingredients so that I could produce something (anything) for today’s post.  Then the kitchen fairies came out and, knowing I needed 8 oz of bittersweet chocolate for this recipe (which I already had the coconut for), I found a 4 oz bar of bittersweet chocolate and exactly 4 oz of bittersweet chocolate chips leftover from a previous recipe.

This recipe produces a crisp coconut macaroon “crust” and a creamy dense chocolate filling that will be perfect with a little bit of whipped cream to lighten it up.  While it is appropriate for Passover, since it is has no flour in it and is unleavened, I think this pie will be welcome at anyone’s spring table.  Chag Sameach!

Coconut Chocolate Pie
Adapted from Martha Stewart’s New Pies and Tarts

For the crust

• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• 1 bag (about 14 oz) of shredded coconut

For the filling

• 1 cup heavy cream
• 8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a food processor, pulse about 1/3 of the coconut and butter together until well combined, 1-2 minutes.
3. In a medium bowl, combine the coconut-butter mixture with the rest of the coconut and stir well until mixture is cohesive.
4. Press the coconut into a 9″ pie plate so that it forms a crust and bake for 10-15 minutes.  If the edges start to brown too much, cover them with some tin foil.
5. Once golden brown, move the crust to a wire cooling rack and let it cool completely before filling with the chocolate (this will allow the crust to crisp up first).
6. While the crust is cooling, bring the heavy cream to boil in a small saucepan.
7. Put the chopped chocolate into a medium bowl and pour the boiling cream over it.  Let it sit for a few minutes then whisk until it is smooth and no streaks of cream remain.
8. Pour the chocolate into the tart shell and let it cool before moving it to the refrigerator to set completely for another hour or so.  Enjoy!

I love chicken pot pie.  It was (is) one of Mom’s signature dishes as I was growing up, and to this day I find I’m compelled to try it from every restaurant menu it appears on (which isn’t many, because it’s more a homey comfort food instead of high class fare).  So naturally, I’ve been looking forward to trying this recipe ever since I cracked open The Pastry Queen.

What can I say, but that it’s a great chicken pot pie!  I have certainly built up a criteria over the years, some of which this pie admittedly doesn’t qualify for, namely in two things:  I prefer puff pastry on top to crust (or the biscuits Mom tops hers with) and I prefer a higher sauce-to-filling ratio than this one provided, the opposite of which seems to be standard for chicken pot pie recipes I’ve tried at home.  But that all said, the filling is really a great combination of flavors–adding mushrooms and red bell pepper that I never would have used before, and I look forward to making this again and again!  I was surprised at Rebecca’s use of hot sauce and red pepper flakes but this was by no means a spicy dish: the hot sauce really gives an otherwise bland cream sauce dimension without overloading you on too many flavors.

I wish I loved the crust as much as the other girls did, but it felt a little heavy and dry to me (rolling it much thinner than Rebecca suggested helped a lot, though) so I think I’ll stick with puff pastry in the future–even just the frozen stuff does the trick.  As for the filling, it was so good that the only change I made was to add some dried thyme, since I’m of the opinion that most savory comfort food just isn’t comfort food without thyme in it.

Note: While I know many cooks prefer to prepare a mise en place (which means setting out all of your ingredients measured and chopped exactly how you need them before you start the recipe), this recipe lends itself well to those less-organized people (me) who prepare ingredients as they go.  While the potatoes and onions cooked, I chopped the bell pepper and mushrooms.  While the vegetables all cooked together, I shredded the chicken, and so on and so forth.

All-Sold-Out Chicken Pot Pies
Makes 6 Servings
Adapted from The Pastry Queen by Rebecca Rather

Filling

• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 medium-size yellow onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 large russet potato, peeled and diced
• 1 red bell pepper, diced
• 8 oz. button mushrooms, sliced (I think 4 oz, half a package of mushrooms, is perfect but you can adjust to your tastes)
• ½ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 1 teaspoon dried thyme
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 purchased cooked rotisserie chicken, shredded
• 1 (8 oz) package frozen peas

Cream Sauce

• ½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 3 cups chicken stock
• ½ cup heavy whipping cream
• dash of hot pepper sauce, such as Tabasco
• salt and white pepper

Crust

• 1 cup (2 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 16 pieces
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 10 oz. chilled cream cheese
• 1 tsp salt
• ½ tsp white pepper
• 1 large egg

1. Melt the butter in a large pan over medium heat, add the potatoes and onions and saute for 5 minutes
2. Add the bell pepper, garlic and mushrooms and saute for 15 minutes, until potatoes are soft; stir in the crushed red pepper and thyme; salt and pepper to taste.
3. Add the shredded chicken and frozen peas, which will defrost in the heat of the filling, and set the pot aside while you make the cream sauce.
4. Add butter for the cream sauce to a new sauce pan and let it melt.
5. Gradually add the flour, whisking the whole time so that the butter and flour make a paste.
6. Gradually add the chicken stock to the flour-butter paste, whisking thoroughly after each addition until you have a smooth sauce before adding more chicken stock; add the cream, hot pepper sauce; salt and white pepper to taste.  I will never forget my Mom’s advice to “cook the flour taste out.”  I stood over the stove and let it bubble for about ten minutes, tasting it every few minutes or so.  She’s absolutely right–it will taste just like flour until cooked long enough and then it starts to taste creamy and peppery instead.
   
7. Pour the cream sauce over the chicken-vegetable mixture in the other pot and stir to combine.  Divide the filling up amongst the (oven proof) serving bowls you are using.  If you don’t want to do individual servings, you can do one big glass baking dish of it, which is how Mom always served it to the family.
8. Heat the oven to 375 degrees.
9. Pulse the flour and butter in a food processor until crumbly.
10. Add the cream cheese, salt and pepper to the food processor and process until the dough forms a big ball.
11. Dump the dough out onto a floured surface and roll it to 1/8″ thickness (Rebecca said 1/4″ but that was WAY too thick for me) with a floured rolling pin.
12. Cut out rounds of dough that will drape over the sides of your bowls by about 1/2″, and drape over tops of bowls.
13. Beat the egg with a splash of water and brush the crust with the egg mixture.
14. Place pot pies on a baking sheet so you can put them all in and pull them out all at once.
15. Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown on top and enjoy!

My friend travels all over the world and, when it was decided she would get a surprise party this year for her birthday, “Where in the World is Mikaela?” was a theme we just couldn’t pass up.  Each of us signed up for a different country to represent and I, being the Anglophile that I am, chose England.

There’s a scene in “Love Actually” where Kiera Knightly’s character offers up some Banoffee Pie as a token of peace.  For years I wondered what this mysterious British dessert might be before I finally looked it up.  It’s much less exotic than I thought: banana-toffee pie.  The words are just squished together!  I had to make it to represent England for Mikaela’s party.  The pie is quite simple to make and, despite my misgivings, was surprisingly delicious!

That said, this pie also brought about my first major cooking injury–I tried to take my knuckle off with my mandolin slicer and as I type this, my finger is bandaged up in a full finger splint so that I can’t bend my finger and open up the cut again–I also can’t write, type, or do anything else normal with my right hand.  But I guess you live, you learn!  And like I said, the pie was great at least and by the end of the night, we were all standing around the dish, scraping out the scraps with spoons.

Banoffee Pie

• 2 cans (14 oz) of sweetened condensed milk
• 1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs
• 2 sticks of butter, 1 melted
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 4 ripe bananas, sliced (but don’t slice your finger!)
• 1 pint whipping cream
• 1/3 cup powdered sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder

1. In a double boiler, heat the condensed milk for 1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally.  The milk will turn a golden color.
2. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
3. Combine the graham cracker crumbs and stick of melted butter until fully combined and press evenly into a 9″ deep dish pie plate.  Bake for 5-9 minutes until golden and toasty smelling.  Let cool completely.
4. Add butter and brown sugar to condensed milk after 1 1/2 hours, stirring until evenly combined.
5. Pour 1/2 – 1/3  of the milk mixture (“toffee” at this point) into the cooled pie crust, layer the bananas in an even layer on the mixture, top with rest of the toffee, then transfer to fridge for 1 hour or more until completely cool.
6. Once cool, whip the cream, powdered sugar, and vanilla into a stiff whipped cream.  Top pie with whipped cream and dust with a layer of cocoa powder by sifting the powder over the top.  Enjoy!

You probably have a favorite apple pie recipe.  You should probably throw it out the window and replace it with this one.  The process, I admit, is slightly more involved than your average apple pie recipe, but it is absolutely worth it.  There’s apples, Southern Comfort, caramel, an overabundance of cinnamon…really, I hope that old recipe of yours is on the ground outside your window by now.

As I mentioned previously, I made this for a group of friends along with the Pumpkin Pie, but this pie was without a doubt the winner of the night.  There are only two tiny issues I had with this pie: 1) the caramel filling overflowed a great deal, but I’m sure that if the pie had a well-sealed full top crust instead of just a crumble topping, this wouldn’t have been as big a problem–good thing we had a pan on the rack below, or else I’m guessing we would have had to pay to have the oven cleaned in the place we had rented!… and 2) good Saigon Cinnamon is $8 at my grocery store and I had just purchased a new bottle.  This recipe cleaned out at least half the bottle and then some!  That said, I think the strong spicy cinnamon really made this pie the wonder that it was, so chintzing on mediocre cinnamon is a crime against this pie.

In the end, though, this is another recipe to save for Thanksgiving and I promise you’ll barely be able to sit through dinner before diving into this pie!  Like the Pumpkin Pie, I did cheat and use a store-bought crust that was too small for my deep dish pie plate, but if you’re looking for a homemade pie crust recipe, see my Bourbon Honey Peach Pie. 

To see how other members of Project Pastry Queen fell in love with this pie (I think it was unanimously love-at-first-bite), check them out here!

Southern Comfort Apple Pie
The Pastry Queen by Rebecca Rather

Topping

• 1/2 cup chopped pecans
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 3 tablespoons dark brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup all purpose flour
• 1/3 cup chilled unsalted butter

1 unbaked pie crust

Filling

• 5-6 medium size tart apples
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 3 tablespoons ground cinnamon
• 1 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup Southern Comfort liqueur
• 1/2 cup heavy cream

To Make the Topping:

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.
2. In a food processor, process both sugars, the cinnamon, salt and flour for about 1 minute.
3. Cut the butter into small pieces and add to the sugar-flour mixture.  Pulse about 10 – 15 times, until the mixture is crumbly.  DON’T over-process!  Mine turned into a big hunk of dough because I pulsed a few extra times and then thought “oh, if I keep pulsing, the blade will cut up the mixture into tiny pieces again.”  I don’t know where that logic came from because the opposite is true and I knew it.  I just stuck the mixture back in the fridge and crumbled it up with my fingers later.
4. Stir in the pecans (and don’t try tasting it, because I made this mistake and may have ended up eating a quarter of the bowl of topping).  Refrigerate until ready to use.
5. Line a 9″ deep-dish pie plate with pie dough.  Press it into place and crimp the edges.

To Make the Filling:

1. Peel, core, and cut the apples into 1/4″ thick slices (I used one of those handy apple slicers and just cut each resulting slice in half).
2. Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  When the butter starts to foam, add the apples and saute for 5-8 minutes (I had to somehow do mine in two batches because my 10″ skillet wasn’t large enough.  Either do two skillets at once, splitting the ingredients evenly between the two or be ready to clean up the mess you make on the stove spilling apples out of the pan).
3. In a small bowl, stir together the cinnamon and sugar; sprinkle it on the apples and stir to combine.  Simmer the apples for another minute.
4. Remove the apples from the skillet with a slotted spoon and onto a baking sheet, leaving as much of the butter-sugar-apple juices mixture in the pan as possible.  Make sure the apples are spread out in a single layer or else they’ll steam and get all mushy.
5. Pour the Southern Comfort into the butter-sugar mixure in the pan.  Simmer the mixture over medium heat for at least 5 minutes, until the alcohol burns off (it shouldn’t sting your nose if you sniff the steam rising from it).
6. Add the cream and continue cooking for 5-10 minutes until the mixture is thick as pourable caramel.
7. Add the apples back to the skillet and toss the apples with the caramel sauce until evenly coated, then pour contents of pan into the unbaked pie crust.
8. Sprinkle the crumble topping evenly over the apples and transfer dish to oven, making sure there is a tin-foil lined baking sheet on the rack below the pie to catch any juices that bubble over (if there’s a lot, the oven may smoke, which is okay as long as your pie doesn’t burn and the fire alarm in your house doesn’t go off).
9. Bake for 50-60 minutes until the filling is bubbling and the topping is brown.
10. Serving warm with ice cream or cooled off after dinner or however you may decide to enjoy it!

Clearly I’ve been on a big bourbon-in-cooking kick lately, but this time it’s not my fault!  Tara chose the Bourbon Pumpkin Tart for Project Pastry Queen this week!

I do love pumpkin pie—it’s one of my all-time favorites, so I was excited to try a new version of it.  I have to admit, I found this one to be a little too spiced (I think it was the cloves), but the addition of bourbon was a lot of fun.  The changes I made to the recipe were out of necessity and not experimentation with my own version, unfortunately, because I made this pie in a kitchen that was not my own, hence the pie instead of the great tart idea and, because I skipped ahead a few weeks to also make the Southern Comfort Apple Pie which also had a crumb topping, I left the crumb topping off of this pumpkin pie so as not to be too redundant (I was cooking for a crowd, after all, and who needs crumble topping on both pies for dessert?).  I also regret to say that I used store-bought crust because, again, I was cooking for a crowd in a foreign kitchen (you can tell–look how it bubbles in the picture).  That said, making this recipe made me realize that the new pie plates I bought are actually deep-dish pie plates, because the rolled up pie crust I usually use in a pinch didn’t have any left over for crimping the edges!

I highly highly suggest you keep this recipe in the back of your mind for Thanksgiving, especially if you like a pumpkin pie chock-full of spices—and if not, just leave out the cloves and ginger and be sure to serve the pie with whipped cream to mellow the flavors out.  I’m posting the recipe as I made it, but if you would prefer to try the original tart version with crumble topping, as written in The Pastry Queen, head over to Tara’s blog (who, by the way made an absolutely gorgeous tart–it makes me wish I had saved this pie to make at home and hadn’t had to “dumb” mine down!).

Bourbon Pumpkin Pie
Adapted from The Pastry Queen by Rebecca Rathers

• 1 can (15 oz) pure pumpkin
• 3 large eggs
• ½ cup sugar
• ¼ cup firmly packed brown sugar
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• ½ teaspoon ground cloves
• ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1 tablespoon flour
• ½ cup heavy whipping cream
• ¼ cup bourbon
• 1 refrigerated pie crust (for a homemade pie crust recipe, see my previous post on Peach Pie)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Roll out crust and gently ease it into a 9 inch pie plate.
3. Add pumpkin to a large bowl and whisk in the eggs, one at a time until thoroughly incorporated.
4. Add both sugars, salt, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg and flour; whisk vigorously until combined.  Whisk in cream and bourbon.
5. Pour the pumpkin mixture into the prepared pie crust and bake for 40-45 minutes or until the filling is set and doesn’t jiggle when you move the pie plate back and forth.
6. Let cool 1 hour before serving and, as I mentioned before, serve with whipped cream!

When I saw KCRW & LACMA were holding a pie contest, I was interested.  When I saw that there was a category just for pies inspired by Tim Burton, I was hooked.  I instantly started churning out ideas and sketching them out on scraps of paper….Jack the Pumpkin King Pumpkin Pie, Sweeney Todd “Meat” Pie, the Queen of Hearts’ Strawberry Tarts….the possibilities were endless!  I couldn’t have asked for a more inspiring and creative special category and I was disappointed to find out we could only enter one pie per category.  So instead of disguising my cast-off Tim Burton creations to be suitable for other categories (fruit, nut, savory, or cream/chiffon), I decided to focus all my creative and baking energy to making one really great pie: James and the Giant Peach Pie.

I felt, despite the fact that the judges were a total all-star panel, that pumpkin and strawberry and meat pies are so subjective to a judge’s mood on any given day…but that no one can actually turn down a really good peach pie, no matter what their mood.  Since it was for Tim Burton, I knew I had to go all out on themeing the pie and if there’s one thing I love it’s a challenge that combines baking and crafting.  In “James and the Giant Peach,” the characters live inside a peach floating across the English Channel, at one point being pulled by a large flock of birds.  So I went to the co-op, found the largest peach in the bin, and proudly carried it home, knowing it would be my centerpiece.  I held up the line at FedEx-Kinko’s while the guy at the desk and I printed out the characters in a few different sizes for me to experiment with (and mirror images of them, so no matter what side you looked at the pie from, you wouldn’t be staring at the white back of paper).  And I dashed through the craft store, wondering if I really needed a pair of needle nose pliers and wire cutters to pull off this project (I did).  The final result was a “giant” peach, the cast of characters merrily perched on top, being pulled by birds through waves of the English Channel pie crust.

There were some hurdles to jump first, though.  I admit, though I love making pies, I normally have no patience for pie crust and just use frozen crust from the store (it could be because I make most of my pies around Thanksgiving when I have other things to worry about, like if I remembered the cranberries for the stuffing).  These pies had to be 100% homemade and, truthfully, I’m glad for it, because the process reminded me that crust really is so simple to throw together that I should take the time to do it more often.  The other hurdle was that in order to pull off my design element, I needed a little stand to hold the peach up at crust level and I didn’t know a single pizza store that still used those plastic stands to keep the box from drooping into the cheese.  Imagine my delight when the hero boyfriend called from a conference he was at in San Fransisco to say that he had triumphantly found and saved two pizza box stands and he would be home on Friday with them!

So with all challenges behind me and nothing left to do but bake a pie, I plunged ahead, making the crust on Saturday night and the pie early on Sunday morning, hoping it would cool off enough before having to bring it to LACMA for judging.  And when all that was said and done….

I placed first in the Tim Burton category!  My very first blue ribbon!  I was so nervous seeing my pie up on the judges’ table, but after my name was called, I was absolutely jumping for joy and so proud of what I had accomplished.  The boyfriend had been hiding inside the pie tent so that he could have first dibs at tasting some of the 250 pies entered in the contest, but came out to celebrate with me and join in my first paparazzi moment (after 3 years in LA, it’s about time, eh?).  I’m so grateful to all the friends who showed their support either by coming to the event or just offering moral fortitude for my first baking contest–it certainly paid off!  And now, dear readers, I pass the recipe on to you to share with your family and friends.  Award Winning Bourbon Honey Peach Pie, submitted for your pie-eating pleasure:

Bourbon Honey Peach Pie
adapted from Gourmet, July 2009 via Sassy Radish
crust adapted from Cook’s Illustrated

Pie Crust (enough for 2 crusts, a top and bottom)

• 2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon table salt
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 12 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch slices
• 1/2 cup chilled solid vegetable shortening , cut into 4 pieces
• 4 tablespoons vodka , cold
• 4 tablespoons ice water

Filling

• 3 lb ripe peaches
• 2 tablespoons cornstarch
• 1 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
• heaping 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• heaping 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup honey
• 2 tbsp bourbon
• 1 tablespoon vanilla bean paste (or extract)
• 2 tablespoons water
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter

• 1 egg white
• sugar for sprinkling

1. Process 1 1/2 cups flour, salt, and sugar together in food processor until combined, about 2 one-second pulses.
2. Add butter and shortening and process until homogenous dough just starts to collect in uneven clumps, about 10 seconds (dough will resemble cottage cheese curds with some very small pieces of butter remaining, but there should be no uncoated flour). Scrape down sides and bottom of bowl with rubber spatula and redistribute dough evenly around processor blade.
3. Add remaining 1 cup flour and pulse until mixture is evenly distributed around bowl and mass of dough has been broken up, 4 to 6 quick pulses. Empty mixture into medium bowl.
4. Sprinkle vodka and water over mixture. With rubber spatula, use folding motion to mix, pressing down on dough until dough is slightly tacky and sticks together. Flatten dough into 4-inch disk. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least 45 minutes or up to 2 days.
5. Place a foil lined baking sheet on the middle rack in your oven and preheat to 425 degrees.  This will ensure ,when you put the pie in the oven to bake on the already hot sheet, that the butter and shortening will melt and coat the flour faster, before the peach juices get to the flour.  If the butter and shortening melt first, you’ll get a flaky crust.  If the peach juices get to the crust first, you’ll get nothing but a soggy crust.  If you have been chilling your dough overnight, pull it out now so that it can soften.
6. You can choose to peel the peaches or not.  If you do want to peel them, blanching them will make the process a lot easier.  I personally just didn’t want to take the time to peel them and the pie was, obviously, fine.
7. Slice the peaches into 8 pieces per fruit, tossing them in a bowl as you go.
8. Pour the lemon juice over the peaches slices.
9. In a small bowl, mix the cornstarch, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt.  Pour the mixture over the peach slices and toss the peaches until evenly coated.
10. Bring 1/2 cup sugar, honey, vanilla, and bourbon and water to a boil in a 1 1/2- to 2-qt heavy saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring until sugar has dissolved.  Boil without stirring, swirling pan occasionally so the mixture darkens in color evenly, until dark amber, about 5 minutes. (Tricked you!  You’re basically making vanilla honey caramel here!  But we’re not going all the way to caramel, instead we’re just cooking the sugar long enough to deepen the flavors and give it a hint of caramel flavor.)
    
11. Remove from heat and add butter, swirling pan until butter is melted. Pour over fruit and toss the peaches until evenly coated.
12. Sprinkle a generous amount of flour on top of the first dough round and roll out 1 piece of dough into a 13-inch round on a generously floured surface.  Gently roll the dough around the rolling pin and then unroll it into the pie plate, gently lifting the edges and settling it into the plate (at this point it is suggested that you chill the pie plate and crust while you roll out the other crust but truthfully, I was rushing and forgot and it was fine).  Roll out the second pie crust using the same flouring methods.
13. Spoon (or dump) the peaches into the pie crusted plate and lay the second rolled out crust on top.  Trim the overhand so there’s just about a 1/2 inch left.  Going around the edge, you’ll seal the juices in best if you fold the edge of the crust underneath itself before crimping or decorating it.  Cut a hole about 2″ wide in the center of the top pie crust for steam to vent out.
14. Brush the crust with the egg white and then sprinkle with sugar.  Both will make the crust shiny and delicious!
15. Bake pie on hot baking sheet 20 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 375°F. Continue to bake until crust is golden-brown and filling is bubbling, about 50 minutes more–tent tin foil over the top of the pie if the crust starts to brown too much. Cool pie to room temperature, 3 to 4 hours.

I have to admit, I was extremely hesitant about this week’s chosen recipe for Project Pastry Queen (see everyone’s results delicious results here!).  After all, I have my own secret special recipe for pecan pie and, since I was bringing this into the office for our September birthday celebration, if this recipe was a flop I did NOT want people thinking this was a version of my famous Thanksgiving pie.

But I saw that my fellow PPQ’ers loved the recipe and I decided to go for it and wouldn’t you know that this is a great recipe!  I can definitely say this though: it is RICH.  This recipe has a total of 7 cups of brown sugar in it–one cup in the crust and 6 cups in the filling.  Definitely meant to be eaten in very small portions.  I liked the addition of bourbon to it, though, and am even thinking about tweaking my own pie recipe just a touch to include it.

Just some notes about my little changes to Rebecca’s original recipe: I left out the coconut since the recipe depended on coconut for texture, not flavor, and I’ve never really loved shredded coconut’s texture.  I substituted in an extra 3/4 cup of pecans to make up for any lack of texture in the filling.  I also used strictly whole wheat flour in the crust here.  Truth be told, it was because I was afraid I would run out of white all-purpose flour before finishing my various baking projects for the day and I have to say that I think the whole wheat flour really was a great add.  It gave the crust a sweet nutty flavor that really complimented the filling instead of just being a sweet butter crust to support the filling on top of it.

This recipe makes a huge huge batch of bars, so just beware.  Also, I didn’t have the 12×17 baking dish the recipe calls for so I used my largest and second largest glass baking pans and I actually still had extra crust left over.

Bourbon Pecan Pie Bars
Makes about 2 1/2 dozen bars
Adapted from The Pastry Queen

Crust

• 1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature
• 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 4 cups whole wheat flour (white all-purpose flour can be used instead)
• 1 teaspoon salt

Filling

• 8 large eggs
• 6 cups firmly packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup bourbon
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 3/4 cups pecan halves

To Make Crust

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a 12×17″ glass baking pan (or whatever smaller glass pans you have on hand).
2. Beat butter with an electric mixer in a large bowl on medium speed for 1 minute.  Add the sugar to the butter and beat 1 minute, until fluffy.
3. Add flour and salt, mix on low speed until evenly incorporated but still crumbly.
4. Press the mixture evenly over the bottom of the prepared pan(s).  I made sure not to let the crust get over 1/4 of an inch, which is why I had leftover crust mixture even after 2 pans.  I’d rather have more filling than crust in the end, wouldn’t you?
5. Bake the crust for 15 minutes, until it has darkened to a deep golden brown.
6. Leave the oven set on 350 degrees while you make the filling.

To Make Filling

1. Whisk the eggs and sugar in a large bowl until blended.
2. Stir in the bourbon, butter, vanilla, flour and salt until blended.
3. Stir in pecan halves.
4. Pour the filling over the crust(s).
5. Bake until the center is set and doesn’t wobble anymore, about 25-30 minutes.
6. Cool thoroughly, at least 30 minutes before cutting.

Between my two different pans, I baked one until it was fully set and one until it was mostly set but still a little jiggly when I took it out.  I preferred the one that was baked longer, as the jiggly one was a bit more oozy and less solid than the ones pictured above.  It’s up to you, though!

I’ve only been blogging for a few months but I followed various food blogs for a long time before starting my own.  Even so, there are so many facets to the food blogging world that I’m only now being introduced to.  One of those facets is the Project Pastry Queen, a group of extraordinary bloggers who are baking their way through Rebecca Rather’s The Pastry Queen, and a group I am pleased to say I am joining!  Each week one of the members chooses a recipe, we all give it a shot and share the hopefully fabulous results with you.

I received my copy of the cookbook last week and this week’s challenge for the group was inconveniently a brownie recipe…there’s still a batch of brownies sitting on my counter slowly disappearing, so for the sake of my waistline, I dove into Rebecca’s recipe collection with one I knew I could pass off to the boyfriend who would happily devour it all himself.  Strategy is everything, right?

This recipe falls somewhere between a pie, a cobbler, and a cake.  If you don’t want to wait for it to cool so you can cut it into bars, Rebecca suggests you can just spoon it out of the pan warm like a cobbler.  Either way sounds good to me!

Sour Cream Blackberry Pie Bars
Recipe from The Pastry Queen

• 3 cups flour
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) chilled unsalted butter

• 4 large eggs
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 cup sour cream
• 3/4 cup flour
• pinch of salt
• 2 16-oz bags of frozen blackberries, defrosted and drained

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a 9×13″ baking pan with butter or spray.  Combine the flour, sugar and salt in a food processor and pulse for about 45 seconds until fully combined.  Cut butter into 1/2″ cubes and drop into the flour mixture.  Pulse the butter-flour mixture it looks crumbly.  If you don’t have a food processor, you can cut the butter in using two knives, a pastry cutter, or an electric stand mixer.
2. Reserve 1 1/2 cups of the crumbly mixture to use as the topping.  Press the rest of the crumbly mixture evenly into the greased baking pan (could pie crust ever get any easier??).
3. Bake the crust for 15-20 minutes until it is golden brown.  Note: my crust barely browned on top but it turns out it was dark brown on the bottom and very crunchy.  Daniel said it was the perfect crunchy texture, so just be aware that you don’t need to get it super browned on top.
4. Let the crust cool for at least 10 minutes and in the meantime…
5. Whisk the eggs in a large bowl, add sugar and whisk until completely combined.  Add sour cream (whisk), flour and salt (whisk again).  Gently fold the blackberries into the mixture.
6. Pour the blackberry mixture over the baked crust and make sure it is spread into the corners evenly.  Sprinkle the reserved crumbles evenly across the top of the blackberry mixture–I thought it would be a pretty light sprinkling, but it ended up being a complete crust and you couldn’t see any of the blackberry mixture underneath.
7. Bake for 45-55 minutes until the top is lightly browned.  Let cool for at least 1 hour if you want to cut it into bars.  If you want to spoon it out like a cobbler, let it cool for about 30 minutes or as long as you can stand it!

I think whipped cream was a great compliment to this recipe.  For about 1 1/2 cups of whipped cream, you’ll need 3/4 cup of chilled heavy cream, 3/4 teaspoon of sugar and 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract, and a chilled bowl is suggested.  Beat on low speed for 30 seconds, medium speed for about 30 seconds, and then kick it up to high speed until it’s the consistency you want it. (Cooks Illustrated, March 2005)